Relatives headed to the Athens mortuary to seek the fate of loved ones still missing after Greece’s deadliest forest fire in decades, a blaze that Greek authorities said they increasingly suspect resulted from arson.

Relatives headed to the Athens mortuary to seek the fate of loved ones still missing after Greece’s deadliest forest fire in decades, a blaze that Greek authorities said they increasingly suspect resulted from arson.

Public Order Minister Nikos Toskas said satellite image analysis and ground inspections provided “serious indications” the fire that broke out in multiple places within a short time frame on Monday and killed at least 82 people was set deliberately.

Dozens spent hours at sea before being picked up by coast guard vessels, fishing boats and a passing ferry.

Several of the dead were people who drowned.

The worse affected area was the seaside community of Mati, where the majority of victims were found, including 26 people found huddled together, many embracing.

Arriving at the mortuary with her son, Maria Saridou was hoping her 55-year old sister, Eleni, was not among the victims.

She had gone swimming with a friend of hers in Mati, Saridou said, but the two became separated in the chaos of the fire.

She had not heard from her since.

“We found her car, it wasn’t burnt, nor was the house,” said 60-year-old Ms Saridou.

“It’s just that we can’t find her. … I believe she’s alive. Where she went, nobody knows where she went.”

Hundreds of homes were burnt.

The speed with which the flames spread took many by surprise.

The narrow streets of Mati, an area built up with no town planning, quickly became clogged with parked and abandoned cars as people tried to flee, hampering access by firefighting trucks and blocking escape routes.

One Belgian national and one Irish national were among those confirmed dead.

Some of the casualties are believed to have tried to make it to the shore through narrow pathways, but lost their way in the thick smoke or had their paths blocked by the swift-moving blaze.

Even those on beaches were not safe, as flames burned trees and vegetation at the water’s edge, while flaming pine cones rained downward, survivors have said.

Recriminations about the apparent lack of an evacuation plan and what many perceived to have been a slow response has mounted, with survivors saying they had been abandoned to do whatever they could to save themselves alone.

Firefighting and rescue efforts, particularly from the air and the sea, were hampered by gale force winds and rough seas.

When the Rafina fire broke out, crews were also engaged in fighting a massive fire west of Athens that had broken out hours earlier and also burnt homes.

Burned cars are collected together at an old football field in Rafina (Thanassis Stavrakis/AP)

But survivors have accused authorities of failing to adequately prepare and for not evacuating the area, as well as not responding fast enough.

Defence minister Panos Kammenos visited Mati on Thursday morning and was heckled by distraught men and women, who accused authorities of not doing enough in the initial hours of the fire.

“People died for nothing!” one woman sobbed at the minister.

Local resident Giannis Kardiakos, who said he stayed in the area until midnight, said efforts to tackle the blaze and to rescue those who had fled to the beaches started too late.

“There was no protection, there was nothing! … I’m saying things as they were,” he said, as Mr Kammenos detailed what the military and firefighters had been doing to battle the fire.

“I’m not lying. We’re not talking politically here,” he added, before breaking down in tears.